For me the most unique message coming out of the horrible Japanese disaster is that the Japanese are not looting.

“Foreign observers are noting with curiosity and wonder why the Japanese people in disaster-plagued areas are not looting for desperately-needed supplies like bottled water, writes Thomas Lifson in The Thinker magazine. ‘This behavior contrasts sharply with what has so often happened in the wake of catastrophes elsewhere, such as Haiti, New Orleans, Chile, and the UK, to name only a few.”

It is a great embarrassment to me that our Christian nation is not producing citizens of the quality idolatrous Japan is producing.

"They don't do looting," David Welch, Chair of Global Security at Waterloo's Centre for International Governance Innovation, says plainly. The Japanese are an incredibly civic-minded, orderly, and rule-following people, according to Welch.”

The Cruise Ship and the Ferryboat

"Japanese people," one of them explained, "are like passengers on a cruise ship. They know that they are stuck with the same people around them for the foreseeable future, so they are polite, and behave in ways that don't make enemies, and keep everything on a friendly and gracious basis." "Americans," he said, "are like ferryboat passengers. They know that at the end of a short voyage they will get off and may never see each other again. So if they push ahead of others to get off first, there are no real consequences to face. It is every man for himself." Simply put Americans are more selfish.

"But a lot of these older Asian traditions do stress things such as respect for the elderly, respect for ancestors, respect for rules and authority figures. So it's got that element to it," said Welch.

This is a wake up call for the western churches to start stressing that we should love our neighbor as our self. That is what Jesus Christ taught.